


The Mistress

by kiralyne



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Voldemort Wins, Class Issues, Coercion, Dubious Consent, Infidelity, M/M, No character bashing, Other, Past Child Abuse, Potions Abuse, The Golden Trio, Tom Riddle is Voldemort's son, Unclear Motivations, Underage: Harry is 16 and Voldemort is old, Unhealthy Relationships, perpetually confused Harry
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-13
Updated: 2019-06-11
Packaged: 2020-01-12 17:51:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18451592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiralyne/pseuds/kiralyne
Summary: “I’ll thank you very handsomely,” Tom Riddle said, “to stay away from my father. Name your price.”In which Tom Riddle is the dutiful child of an entirely different loveless union, and Harry is the mistress getting in the way of that union. Tom does what he can do preserve his parents' marriage.AU, of course.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> After majoring in literature, I read voraciously and I'm out of the practice of writing regularly. This is mostly a writing exercise to get me back into the habit of writing every day and will probably be 7 chapters at most.

“You look remarkably like my mother when she was young.”

That was the voice that Harry had been waiting to hear for some months, maybe even a year. For a long time he had been afraid of being alone, and of the dark -- he always drew his bed curtains open with his wand at the ready; he could never study in the library without jumping at sounds and movements that weren’t really there. Ron always walked back to the dormitory with him and Hermione was always up later than he was, studying harder, writing and learning more -- but now, in Fifth Year, Harry found himself a victim of circumstance: Hermione was sick, and Ron was tending to her, and he was in the library all alone, finishing homework in advance of a Quidditch game. Alas. 

Harry looked up -- and he had replayed this conversation many times in his mind, over and over again, but somehow it was still a shock to see the face that he had expected: sharp-boned, smiling, handsome. It was his lover’s voice, and -- Harry could see from a glimpse into the eyes -- his lover’s mind, as it had been twenty or thirty years ago. But had schoolboy innocence ever sat so perfectly on Voldemort?

“And you, your Royal Highness,” Harry said, so softly that he could hardly hear it over his own heartbeat, “look remarkably like your father.” He tried to smile; he failed.

Tom Riddle laughed. “I should hope that I have my mother’s hair. My father went bald long before you were born,” he said, just as softly, just as agreeably, and he pulled up the chair next to Harry. Harry froze, but Tom Riddle only stuck out his hand and locked eyes. “It’s nice to meet you, Harry Potter, after everything I’ve heard about you. My name’s Tom Riddle.”

Robbed of a response, Harry could only offer, “And I’ve heard a lot about you, your Royal Highness. All positive, of course… though I don’t expect… It’s a pleasure.” Though he did nothing to stave off the silence, Tom Riddle continued to smile. Now that Tom Riddle wasn’t across the Great Hall, or a classroom, he looked even more unnervingly handsome, and less evil -- warm, almost, Harry thought, even though he knew better than that. Harry shivered.

“Are you cold, cousin?” Tom Riddle half-cooed -- and that was his mother’s voice, suddenly, his mother’s saccharine smirk. He gave Harry no time to respond: “Let me fix that for you.” Under the table Tom Riddle waved his wand, murmuring inaudibly, and heat caressed Harry from the inside. In any other circumstance it would have been cozy, but for Harry, the additional heat flushed him with fear and shame. 

“Your Royal Highness…”

“Family friends call me Tom,” Tom Riddle said. “And we are, furthermore, cousins, so let us not stand on formalities, dear Harry.”

Had it been anyone else… Harry gave up. “What do you want?”

“To have the pleasure of your company,” Tom Riddle replied, “and to shower you with gifts.” He didn’t even pretend to use his wand this time; with a flick of his wrist, he sent Harry’s things back into his bag. Harry tried not to glare. “I suppose I’d like to meet the boy that my mother wants so desperately to kill.”

**X**

They walked to Tom Riddle’s suite in silence, locked arm in arm -- because no matter how much Harry hated it, he lived at Tom Riddle’s pleasure, and Harry’s body belonged to Tom Riddle as surely as it belonged to his father.

Harry had known, when he gave in finally to Voldemort’s advances, that this would happen -- had known that this would happen from the moment he met the Minister for Magic and the Minister had kissed his hand instead of shaking it.

For even if he were not received as a Black, Harry was a charge of the House of Black, and from the gossip that Sirius and Regulus exchanged when they thought he was asleep, Harry knew better than most that Voldemort had married Bellatrix Black for her family’s power, her family’s money, and nothing else; that Voldemort did not attend Quidditch games because he enjoyed the game; that someone like Harry would fall into Voldemort’s orbit sooner or later. Had Sirius and Regulus raised him from the start, Harry would have never been given a broom -- but after a childhood spent in a cupboard, there was nothing that could take the love of flight away from him, not even the attentions of a Minister for Magic, or a Dark Lord.

Quidditch was what he was good at; Quidditch made him happy. What did the price matter?

But now, waiting helplessly as Tom Riddle ordered the house elves to prepare some sort of dessert -- “Not too heavy, and not too sweet,” he assured Harry, smiling; “nothing that will make tomorrow’s game _too_ uncomfortable” -- Harry wondered if it were a price he were rich enough to pay. Here he felt distinctly lowborn: Tom Riddle’s suite was sparse, by Slytherin standards, and at the moment it was -- deliberately -- unlit, but by the moonlight he could see that the room was filled still with priceless treasures, like globes that twirled themselves and shelves of books bound in calfskin with “TOM RIDDLE” embroidered on their spines. And on his bedside stand, there was a miniature of his father, set in a frame of turquoise beryls and sapphires which didn’t do anything for his lover’s complexion.

“ _Lumos_ ,” Tom Riddle’s voice whispered in his ear. Harry, very carefully, did not start, though his heart began to judder again. He had not noticed when the room had fallen silent. It looked even more lifeless in the light, as did Tom Riddle. “What nerves you have, Harry! No wonder why my father admires you so. Sit, please.” He thought resentfully that Tom Riddle had whispered for effect more than anything; according to his own father, Tom Riddle had long ago mastered wandless magic.  

Harry sat. Tom Riddle’s bed was, thankfully, not made like his father’s; the linens felt coarse, even. Who was more dangerous to anger: the father or the son? And who was more dangerous to indulge?

Tom Riddle smiled. “I know that your acquaintance with the men of my family is of long standing, but I do not resemble my father in all ways, I hope. I meant at the table.”

Harry flushed. “There wasn’t a table --” -- but, glancing back at the way he had come, there now was a table, and two chairs with velvety seats, and a veritable feast. “Yes, your Royal Highness.” He looked at the seats, at Tom Riddle standing by indifferently, and chose the one by the door.

When he sat, Tom Riddle clucked his tongue. “That’s my seat.” _You could have said so,_ Harry thought, but nevertheless he silently switched seats. “Are you going to talk, Harry? I must confess that I’m failing to see what sets you apart from any other floozy. You have a pretty face, but I’m afraid that I’m going to have to lower my offer considerably if you continue to act this way.”

“Offer,” Harry said, slowly.

“Yes, Harry. Do keep up.” Resting his elbows on the table, Tom Riddle cradled his face against his palm. “Though you ought to tell me what it is that you want, so that I can make an appropriate offer. Go ahead. You can drop this act now. I’ll thank you very handsomely to stay away from my father. Name your price.”

It was useless to protest that it hadn’t been an act -- and besides, with someone like Tom Riddle, being dumb would be worse than playing dumb. Harry straightened in his seat. “Very well,” he said, and tried to think of something that a kept boy would demand: Black properties or money, Slytherin jewels, boxes at Viktor Krum’s games. He stayed silent.

Tom Riddle sighed. “Name your heart’s true desire. Or should I make you an offer instead?”

“Malfoy Manor,” Harry blurted out. To even his own ears it sounded as if though it were the product of long contemplation.

“Done,” Tom Riddle said immediately. And for a moment Harry thought about it, what it would be like if Malfoy Manor were his... “Would you like to inherit the peacocks as well? What day do you want to move in? If you want me to disarm the wards as well, though, you’ll have to promise me more than breaking it off with my father -- ”

 … but he didn’t hate Malfoy that much. “I was kidding. You don’t even own Malfoy Manor! Would you really evict your own cousin?”

“As much as my mother loves her, Aunt Narcissa didn’t marry a Dark Lord,” Tom Riddle replied. He smiled a little and relaxed in his chair. “As far as I’m concerned, the house belongs to us, and Draco will live there for as long as we permit it. Do you think the Manor not splendid enough? My mother -- well, _I_ will build you a castle in Romania if you will agree to go away.”

“Charming,” Harry said, dryly. Tom didn’t say anything, and even though food was the last thing he wanted, Harry reached for the roasted pheasant, which was far away enough that he could have stalled for enough time to think of something else -- but Riddle saw what Harry was doing and beat him to it, slicing it with a deft motion of his knife. And, evidently as a precaution, Riddle stood and began serving Harry a little bit of everything.

“I’ll remind you that the friendship of the Houses of Slytherin and Black are not insignificant. I’m sorry about the food. I’m afraid it’s already cold,” Riddle said, poking skeptically at the food. He passed Harry the plate full of very hot food and he didn’t sit back down; instead he began to pace the room. “I didn’t anticipate that it would take you so long. You have a game tomorrow, after all.”

“And how,” Harry asked, before he could quite lose his courage, “would I still be allowed to play Quidditch, if I were to move to a castle in Romania, or Malfoy Manor, in exchange for rejecting your father?”

Riddle looked at him. “Ah,” he said, exhaling, enlightened -- but he wasn’t smiling; his voice was sounding out from behind Harry, but Harry knew that from the shape of his mouth. His father often used the same tone. “That’s what you want. 

“More than anything,” Harry replied, and his own earnestness shocked him. He had never acknowledged -- not to Ron, Hermione, or even himself -- how much Quidditch meant to him, and what sacrifices he would make for it; it was easier to pretend that it was only because there had been a vacancy on the team, or that it was the only way he fit into the wizarding world. But he was good at other things, too -- he was good at Defense, and, after Voldemort had someone other than Snape give him Potions lessons, even Potions. Even if he was no Hermione, he was smart and strong and skilled enough, but he didn’t want to be an Auror: it was Quidditch he was willing to die for.

“Do you mean that?” Riddle asked. Harry wondered if Riddle was a Legilimens too, or if he, too, could sense the rhythms of Harry’s heart and mind without even looking. “I don’t know how to give you what you want, and I’m not the only one who’s trying to get you to go, you know. I can guarantee you that my mother will break your legs. Or worse.”

“I want you to make your father forget about me,” Harry said. He tried to sense what Riddle must be feeling, felt nothing -- and added, half-questioning, “More than I want Malfoy Manor.”

“Really, Harry, I don’t owe you anything. It’s -- unusual, to say the least, that I’m offering you a settlement of some kind. Most families would have gotten rid of you by now. It would be easy for us to send you to Azkaban, or to arrange for an accident.”

“Your father would never allow it,” Harry pointed out. “If your mother could have done it, she would have, wouldn’t she? You wouldn’t be talking to me right now.” Riddle was silent. “If she kills me, she’ll die too, won’t she? I don’t think that’s a risk she’ll take.”

Riddle hissed -- his eyes flashed -- but he recomposed himself. “Mr. Potter, you don’t know my mother.”

“Harry,” Harry interjected. “It’s Harry. As cousins, we aren’t to stand on ceremony, remember?” Score. He felt himself smiling for the first time since Ron and Hermione had waved goodbye -- just a few impossible hours earlier.

“She’ll kill you, and then she’ll kill herself. If you value your life…”

Harry rolled his eyes and chewed his food for longer than strictly necessary, though in truth his stomach was too constricted for him to be anything close to hungry. “Why do you care so much about what your mother thinks, anyway, if Voldemort does this all the time? If he doesn’t care for me, he won’t care if I disappear. If he does, someone’s head will roll.” Maybe even Harry’s own -- despite his own bravado, he was glad that Riddle wasn’t looking at him.

“Don’t call my father that. He might hear us.”

“That’s just a superstition.” Morgana knew he had used Voldemort’s name and said worse to Hermione and Ron in the wee hours of the night.

And now Riddle was looking at him. “Do you really want to know why?” Harry’s mouth was full of food, but he tried to respond anyway; Riddle flinched, much like Draco would have. “Don’t do that. Rumor has it that you are in line to be the next Dark Lady.” Harry came perilously close to choking. Riddle was content to watch him languidly and took the moment to reseat himself. “Yes, Harry. My father is planning on divorcing my mother and marrying you instead. You wouldn’t survive a Dark Ladyship. My mother murdering you is the best you could hope for. This is a humanitarian mission, really,” Riddle was saying, but Harry wasn’t listening.

 _Of course._ He should have known, he thought, swallowing. Voldemort’s sweet nothings, bestowed in the drowsy moments of the morning -- just before Harry flooed to Hogwarts -- weren’t nothing after all: Voldemort really had been watching his Quidditch career since he had first mounted a broom; Harry really was the love, or something, of Voldemort’s immortal life… And if that were all true, everything else was true as well. Voldemort would never let him out of his sight again; Quidditch had only served to recommend Harry to Voldemort, but it was far too risky an activity for a Dark Lady. Since marrying the Dark Lord, Bellatrix had lived in a cage -- and he didn’t even care for her, hadn’t even ‘bedded’ (for that was the Dark Lord’s word) her since his son’s conception. How much worse would it be for Harry?  

But as Bellatrix’s son, Tom had every incentive in the world to help Harry. Harry felt himself relax, involuntarily; he knew he should keep his guard up, but now he knew that he was in no real danger.

“If Voldie,” -- how like his father’s smile was Riddle’s glare! -- “were to send your mother off to a convent or something, you’d become illegitimate, right? Just like with Henry the Eighth and Catherine of Aragon… or something. 

“How dare you,” Riddle said, hotly. “He adores me. But even if he didn’t, he’s said before that he doesn’t want to have contact with women again.” 

But his response told Harry that he’d hit a nerve.

“Well, Voldie doesn’t _need_ an heir if he’s immortal.”

Riddle scowled. His fingers twitched against the tabletop. “My father told you about that?”

“He’s seventy,” Harry said, yawning and stretching his arms behind his head. “And keeps talking about how he wants to spend, and I quote, ‘the rest of my life with me’. You know, not _his_ life. It’s pretty obvious.”

“Whatever happened to ‘your Royal Highness’?”

“I figure that you need me way more than I need you. Since, you know, I’m about to become your actual _stepfather_ and everything.” Harry beamed suddenly, full of life. “And I bet Voldie would punish you if I were to tell him about this, right?”  

“I’m his heir, his only child, his beloved son,” Riddle said. He sounded more uncertain than before.

“Your family would lose everything. Imagine, you might even be reduced to living with Draco! If that. Your mother would go to the convent and he might have to kill you, because you would imperil my sons.” Harry wagged his finger. “Don’t cross me,” he said, and took a deep sip of the -- wine? Cranberry juice. “Merlin, this isn’t even actual red wine? What do you take me for?”

“You’re playing Quidditch tomorrow,” Riddle grumbled. “At least cranberry juice is roughly the same color.”

“You’re not anything like Voldie,” Harry said, pouting. “Your daddy always gives me the good stuff.”

Through gritted teeth, Riddle said, “Don’t call him those things. And don’t call me Tommy.” And added grudgingly: “It’s bad enough when my mother does it.”

 “You don’t even like your mother, do you?”

 “I honor the woman who bore me,” Riddle responded.

 “So, no.”

 Silence. Harry clapped his hands together. “Well, if you don’t want to talk anymore, I’ll just be going. Big game tomorrow and all that.”

 “Don’t go yet, Potter --”

 “You sound just like your daddy,” Harry cooed, as much like Bellatrix as he could. He had been informed before that he was an excellent mimic, and Riddle seemed to agree; a nerve twitched in his face and, uncharacteristic as it was for the Prince of Slytherin, the heir of Voldemort, Riddle began to splutter. “Good night, Tommy!” He ducked whatever hex it was that was sent his way, opened the door, and began to run.

**X**

Dreamless Sleep had become a mainstay of Harry’s bedtime routine since he had arrived in the Wizarding World, full of the darkness of cupboards; his use of it had intensified after he had started playing Quidditch and become the pride of Gryffindor; he hadn’t missed a night since the day he had become Voldemort’s lover.

Harry took off his glasses, spelled his curtains dark and impenetrable, and drank his night’s dose of Dreamless Sleep. He cleared his mind, the way his Quidditch trainer had instructed him to do, and slept.  

But despite everything he could do to prevent it, Harry dreamed. Or maybe the Dreamless Sleep worked after all and he was only thinking, not dreaming, because probably he was only half-asleep: he could never sleep the night before a Quidditch match; his eyes would flash open to gold, and his ears would buzz with the sounds of snitches.

And now his dreams were too real to be dreams.

Harry thought of Voldemort, of seeing him at Hogwarts years ago on Harry’s first ever day in the Wizarding World. He had been handsomer, then, from a distance; the broad light of day had taken away much of the blueness of his complexion and made brilliant his red eyes. And Bellatrix had been with him, hovering a few steps behind her husband, holding her son’s hand in her own. How lovely Bellatrix was, with her black curls and black veil and red lips and her eyelashes like dripping venom. How much like his mother Riddle looked: already his mother’s height at thirteen, and with his father’s arrogance.

It had never occurred to Harry, then, that they were the First Family, no matter Bellatrix’s loveliness, or that the crowd parted around them, that Riddle sat just apart enough at Slytherin’s table. Even later it seemed unbelievable, for what oddity was there in their family that marked them out for such a distinction? The husband, accomplished, an acclaimed philanderer; the wife, lovely, blue-blooded, mournful somehow; the son beautiful as a statue, and serious as one, always in the nicest robes. 

Harry had seen many such families while he lived with the Dursleys, and he had always been amazed by his jailors’ capacity for envy when the Dursleys slept in spacious, airy, bright bedrooms, and ate abundantly, and often sat around watching the telly, reading magazines, and sometimes they left him at home and went to seasides and lavender fields that they brought back postcards of and didn’t let him touch. What could be more opulent? Harry had never imagined that even people like Tom Riddle lived in bigger houses in the Dursleys’, or ate finer food, or went to more faraway places.

It was only slowly that the degree of Harry’s deprivation, and of other people’s wealth, became apparent to him, and in tiny ways. The Patil twins had ink quills made of heavy glass that sparkled and scintillated when the light touched them, and were light in your hand; even the knits of Ron’s jumpers, and then the jumpers which Molly Weasley sent to him, were more intricate than anything Harry had ever worn. Even now, when Voldemort showered him in things sensuous and costly, Harry still liked to touch Molly Weasley’s jumpers sometimes, even though the wool was itchy. And then there were the brooms.

That had been the moment, probably, that he had made up his mind to play Quidditch, and to be good at it, when he saw Malfoy on his Nimbus 2000. Of course, later there came the Nimbus 2001, and then there was the Firebolt that Voldemort gave him after their first month together that traveled across the sky only a little slower than sound, but even the memory of Malfoy’s Nimbus 2000 tasted like the thrill of Quidditch: love, joy, triumph, everything that he willed himself to feel in Voldemort’s arms. And how Voldemort loved him.

Harry felt so drowsy, so quiet; he wanted to stir, but his body was holding him in an iron cage of fatigue. It felt as if though Harry had been awake for hours, and indeed, he could hear the other boys beginning to wake up; Ron had always been an early riser, and there he was, humming now, making his bed. Ron rustled -- it was Ron; it could be no one but Ron -- near his bed curtains. Harry wanted to call Ron’s name, but his lips wouldn’t move, and his eyes wouldn’t open.

Maybe fifteen minutes more.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The next day: the Quidditch game, Bellatrix, a rendezvous with Voldemort. We learn more about Harry's potions addictions.

“HARRY! You’re going to be late!”

Great, Harry thought — I’m barely awake and Ron’s already mad at me.

“Come on!”

“Breakfast,” Harry said. His mouth was dry; he swallowed. “Breakfast.”

His curtains burst and the world surged into color — red, gold — and Harry’s breath caught and his fingers scrabbled beneath his pillow for his wand before he could see that it was Ron’s head popping through his curtains.

“Come on then!” Then Ron looked at him and his smile faltered. “Is something the matter?”

“No, nothing,” Harry said automatically. “It’s just... You shouldn’t have been able to break the spell on those curtains.”

Ron rolled his eyes. “Do you think Hermione and I spend all night — “

_Voldemort, his arms twined around Harry until sunrise —_

“-- up to no good? You know us better than that, Harry.” 

“No, I don’t! Maybe you do! I don’t know!” Harry exclaimed. “It’s really none of my business.” _Voldemort, kissing him in his sleep, whispering in his ear as Harry tossed and turned even through the haze of Dreamless Sleep, and evened his breaths as if he were really asleep — even though Voldemort, who people said knew everything, could probably hear his heart squirmed painfully with fear._

Ron looked hurt; Harry sighed and gentled his tone. “Sorry. I’m just tired. I’ll be at the Pitch in half an hour.” He closed his eyes again; his eyelids burned with light.

“I can wait for you, Harry. Really.”

Ron was too good for him, Harry thought -- he deserved better, and so did Hermione. Ron and Hermione deserved to have a friend like Neville, steadfast and brave, bland. Someone who would be the godfather to the children that they would doubtless have, someone who could come over for the endless dinner parties, someone who really could marry Ginny.

Harry was surprised by his own bitterness. He really had slept badly.

“No, it’s okay. Just pass me my glasses, could you, Ron.” Ron knocked them against Harry’s fist, which was by his head but clenching nonetheless for the wand under his pillow.

“I got you breakfast too,” Ron said, softly. “Come on, mate. We haven’t seen much of each other lately and I thought... I’m sorry I didn’t spend last night with you.”

“You’ll be late." 

“Ginny and Hermione are saving my seat.” 

Ron’s voice had been taking on that tone more and more recently, Harry thought, whenever they did have the opportunity to talk, even if they were just talking about Ginny’s latest beau or Potions homework. He sounded a lot more like Hermione now — Hermione who had always cautioned Harry about Voldemort, of the necessity of keeping his eyes lowered whenever he spoke to Voldemort, Hermione who had impossible ideas about free choices and happiness and the immorality of coercion.

“We’ll see each other after the match,” Harry said. “I promise.” And it was even more painful than that soft, pitying, wondering tone that Ron didn’t say anything and just left, as if though that had been the answer he had been expecting all along. 

Harry waited a few minutes until he could be sure that Ron was really gone so that he could open his eyes without reasonable fear of whatever he might see in Ron’s expression.

Ron had left two donuts on his pillow, covered in chocolate and sprinkles. Harry wondered how Ron knew about Harry’s weakness for donuts — donuts didn’t exist in the Wizarding World; perhaps learning how to make donuts was part of Arthur’s illicit night classes about Muggles? — but nonetheless Harry put on his glasses and ate one as he dressed in his Quidditch robes directly to avoid the hassle of the bustling dressing room, full of happy, bustling, and very naked Quidditch players, where, before the Incident that had split him from them, he had also been happy. Dressing included charms to straighten his robes, to brush his hair, to take away the dark circles under his eyes. 

And dressing also included taking his potions. Harry had never really been told what the brewer had named them, but Voldemort -- with his gift for euphemism -- had always referred to them as Pepper-Up Potions. They were the only thing that kept Harry awake throughout the day. And, though the Pepper-Up Potions weren’t the reason why Harry had allied himself to Voldemort in the first place, they had become a prominent consideration afterwards: he could have probably bought 4 Privet Drive if he had sold a dozen instead of drinking them; back when he had still kept count -- and was less tired -- he had gone through three a day.

Even if Sirius and Remus could have known about it, and were -- somehow -- willing and able to purchase them, finishing Hogwarts and starting a Quidditch career would have drained the Black and Potter vaults to the dregs.

Harry had five Pepper-Ups left -- enough for a day. Normally he only took two in the morning, and sometimes that lasted him through to eating dinner in the Great Hall, and maybe he could come back and collapse in his bed to save three for tomorrow. He still wanted to go back to sleep, and though he knew from long experience that he would come to regret it if he laid back down for even a moment, he thought about it. No more Dreamless Sleep, no more Pepper-Up, no more Voldemort, no more Quidditch. Harry thought of the crowds chanting his name, of how tired he was, of a cupboard under the stairs.

If the interactions between Dreamless Sleep and Pepper-Up didn’t kill him one day, his ambition would. “Let not light see my black and deep desires,” Harry said, and drank another Pepper-Up.

Harry jolted: just then, there was a knock at the door of the dorm. Harry cast a loud _Alohomora_ , but nobody came in. “Who is it?”

“Y a-t-il quelqu'un ici?” Tom Riddle asked from behind the door.

“Oui,” Harry shouted, instinctively. _Fuck_. Learning French was mandatory, but Harry had never done well in his French class. “Je prépare pour…” He tried to think of the word for match, but his mind was blank. “Riddle! I know it’s you. Just come in. My French is shit and I won’t understand a word you say.” Harry bent down to fix his shoes.

“Je ne parle pas anglais,” Riddle responded, but the door opened.

“Evidently you understand, since you came in! Look, Riddle, I don’t have time for this right now.” There was no response. Harry growled and turned around. “Pourquoi es-tu -- ”

“Pardonnez-moi, Monsieur,” the Dark Lady said. She was smiling prettily and blinking as if though in a deep confusion. She locked eyes with Harry: those were Riddle’s wondrous grey eyes; she looked much like Riddle; maybe Riddle had her face and voice and not his father’s. She spoke more, but Harry didn’t understand her. Harry felt oddly calm -- he had expected that this would happen.

He turned away, and waved his wand in his sleeve, mumbling a homemade translation spell under his breath; neither Fred nor George Weasley wanted to learn French either, but they had graduated with distinctions in French all the same. He had never had to use it himself after Voldemort had excused him from taking French.

“Sorry, Madame,” Harry said, slowly, turning back around. The Dark Lady was still smiling. He could feel the translation spell working, and with a grateful sigh, he sped up. “I thought you were someone else.”

“Pardon me, young man. I’m attending today’s Quidditch game, but I’m lost. Could you please lead me there?”

“Of course. It’s easy to get lost in Hogwarts. The castle is extremely difficult to navigate,” he said, even though he couldn’t imagine how the Dark Lady could have gotten lost up the flights of stairs, found herself behind the Fat Lady, and then by the door of the boys’ dorms. He wondered, idly, if the translation spell converted Anglicisms to a more native French, but he said anyway, “My name is Harry Potter and I’m a Quidditch player.”

“I permit you to call me Bella, young man,” the Dark Lady responded. She extended her hand and Harry bent over it and kissed it. He could feel her eyes boring into his skull.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Madame. Please, follow me.” He cast a Tempus. “The game begins in less than fifteen minutes. Would it be possible, Madame, for us to run?” He looked mournfully at his last donut, sitting on his pillow.

“Call me Auntie Bella,” the Dark Lady insisted. It was a miracle that she could smile so widely while talking. “For I do believe we are family, Harry, bound together by kinship and mutual affection.”

It turned out that Auntie Bella could not, in fact, run; she pleaded an arthritic hip and bone spurs. She asked him about his education, his hobbies, how he liked it at Hogwarts, if he had ever been to Durmstrang, or Morocco. Harry did his level best to parry her questions -- which were at once banal and intrusive -- while casting discreet Tempuses. Yet there was nothing Harry could do to hurry Auntie Bella up and, by the time they reached the Pitch, the match was already have to begun five minutes ago. Harry could see that there was no one in the air.

Voldemort was one of the few standing at the entrance to the Pitch, talking to Dumbledore, and dressed -- as usual -- in black. He looked at them, but he looked neither bewildered nor particularly disturbed. “Bella,” he said.

Auntie Bella’s eyes lit up at the sight of Voldemort -- in a way that Harry’s never would -- and she dashed ahead. Harry wondered if the joy of love cancelled out the pain of bone spurs. “Darling!” she said. Harry’s stomach was sinking to his feet. “Forgive me, I was lost. You know how long ago my Hogwarts days were. This nice young man helped me find my way here, and I’m afraid that I’ve made him quite late! Come, Harry, and meet my husband.”

“Harry,” Dumbledore said, twinkling, with a kind smile --

“Harry!” Oliver Wood hissed, from somewhere behind him. “Ron said you would be late, but where in hell have you been?”

“Wait another minute,” Harry murmured to Oliver. Oliver’s face turned bewildered, but Harry stepped forward anyway, to a respectful enough distance away, and he bowed. “Professor Dumbledore. Your Highness. My name is Harry Potter. 

“I believe we met,” Voldemort said, “last spring, was it?” And no one could have missed the gleam in his eyes, especially not Auntie Bella, who monitored them both very closely, as if genuinely anxious to know how they liked each other. “How charming your French is, Mr. Potter, but you needn’t worry. My darling wife speaks English as well as French.”

“Isn’t it charming, my love?” Auntie Bella said. She spoke slowly and Harry, watching her lip movements, realized -- with a horrible lurch -- that none of Auntie Bella’s lip movements had matched those necessary to speak French. Probably she had been speaking English for quite some time. His face was on fire. Hastily he undid his translation spell. Auntie Bella, who seemed to be watching him, smiled. “Quel beau garçon.”

“HARRY!” Oliver Wood shouted, stomping up behind him. “Where have you fucking been? You’re fucking late and you’re wasting your time conjugating French verbs when you should be trying to catch a fucking Snitch! Pardon me, your Royal Highnesses,” he added, smiling uneasily, and Harry was dragged away to the sound of Auntie Bella’s sympathetic coos.

**X**

When he was in the air, Harry could well and truly forget himself: there was him, the sky, and the Snitch. (And, in the early days of summer, there were also the mosquitoes.) There was no social maneuvering, neither Ministers for Magic nor Dark Ladies, and there were hardly friends or enemies either, only obstacles and helpers, and their relation to the Snitch was clear. He was more at peace playing Quidditch than he was in his sleep. And if allying himself with Voldemort were the key to that peace, he would choose it over everything else, he thought.

But, though his survival instinct was strong, Harry would rather die than have to face another one of _these_ scenes.

They had won, of course. Harry had caught the Snitch, of course. And now, instead of celebrating with his teammates, Harry was forced to schmooze with the guests of honor: the Minister for Magic, his wife, and their son. The Minister for Magic had become a regular visitor at these games -- ringed with bodyguards, of course -- but never before had his family come as well. Harry wished that they had chosen some other event for their family reunion, like a carnival or a zoo, or an amusement park far, far away. Harry was still sweaty and he would rather be with Ron and Hermione, basking in the glow of victory, than.. 

“My honored mother is my guest today,” Riddle was saying. He looked either like Voldemort or the Dark Lady depending on which one he was standing closer to. The three made a very good set. “Mother, this is Harry Potter.”

“It’s a pleasure,” Harry said, distractedly, just as the Dark Lady was saying, “I made his acquaintance earlier. What a lovely boy.”

A little silence fell upon the group. Harry wished desperately that he had taken an etiquette class instead of spending so much time playing Quidditch. He was skilled enough, and had practiced enough, that he had long since reached a point of diminishing returns so far as winning the House Cup went -- but as far as social skills went, even one lesson could go a long way.  

Luckily, there was Riddle. “Yes, it’s always a pleasure to be in the presence of my mother,” he said. Harry side-eyed him skeptically; Riddle’s face was genuinely rapturous. “I wish I could make her acquaintance again for the first time. And remember it,” he added, winking at Harry. Everyone around laughed -- Voldemort, the Dark Lady, their cronies, some eavesdropping Hogwarts students, and some sort of corkscrew-curled society reporter from the Daily Prophet. 

“My son, you flatter me,” the Dark Lady said, cooing again. All and sundry proceeded to praise Riddle’s solicitude for his mother; even Voldemort put in a good word, however gruffly.   

Eventually, the Dark Lady floated away with a separate group of elegantly dressed women -- among which were Narcissa Malfoy, Blaise Zabini’s mother, the society reporter... All of them were rhapsodizing about the Dark Son’s charm, his good looks, his grades. Riddle followed the group as they drifted away, smiling a little, and modestly turning down comments that he felt to be a bit too exuberant: “My skill in the Darker Arts owes to my father’s careful tutelage. I daresay even a Weasley could attain to my proficiency with such a teacher…”

Harry felt shell-shocked.  

“So, Mr. Potter,” Voldemort said, smoothly. “How do you find my wife? Do you find her charming?”

“Indeed,” Harry said. He looked at Voldemort; his eyes were lingering on Harry’s sweaty collarbone, and Harry decided that he could add, softly, “I probably find her more charming than you do.”

“Clever,” Voldemort murmured, but he said louder, “I am happy to meet my wife’s kinsman. Mr. Potter, you are a star in the Quidditch firmament. We are incredibly pleased to have you. You are a credit to our fair nation.”

“The royal we?” Harry interjected, snidely.

Voldemort raised his voice yet higher. “I understand that you are to graduate soon?” Harry could tell that Voldemort was going to bite him, later, when he could.

He wished, at least, that Voldemort could invent a new excuse to shephard Harry back to the locker rooms. “Within two years, your Highness,” he said, even though everyone in earshot must have heard that at least a dozen times.

Voldemort nodded. His hand had migrated to Harry’s back, Harry noticed distantly. “You are very talented for one so young. If it would please you, I’d like to discuss your prospects after you graduate Hogwarts.”

Harry didn’t know why they still bothered; the crowd around them was parting already, as it had for the First Family as Tom Riddle had boarded the Hogwarts Express on Harry’s first magical day so many years ago. There was no earthly reason for the Minister for Magic to attend every little Quidditch game. 

Harry saw his teammates shuffle by, throwing knowing glances. 

At least his teammates had vacated the locker room. Before everyone had caught on, there had always been a few unfortunate stragglers in the locker room who, daring to take a shower for just five minutes longer, found themselves subjected to a few Obliviates and Cruciatuses upon stepping out. Voldemort took particular pleasure, Harry thought, in punishing anyone who witnessed or demonstrated knowledge of their affair; the Dark Lady was an intelligent woman, to handle Harry the way she did.  

Harry wondered if Dumbledore knew.

Voldemort always took some sort of special pleasure in having their rendezvouses in the locker rooms of the Quidditch pitch -- it was, maybe, some repressed fantasy of the young Voldemort, to fornicate in the locker rooms. Or maybe, Harry thought as Voldemort slammed his back against a locker, Voldemort had seen many Muggle movies -- but Harry didn’t know how that would have come about.

From whispers, Harry knew by now that Voldemort was a half-blood, maybe; that he was about seventy, and had gone to Hogwarts over half a century ago; and when he had been trying to woo Harry with personal and emotional dinners, Voldemort himself had vaguely alluded to having spent some time in the Muggle world, and it was because of the hospitality that Muggles had shown Voldemort during that time that he was bent on destroying all of them.

Voldemort was simply an institution, or a force of nature: as far as Harry was concerned, Voldemort had been born old; he had no emotions and no real purpose in the world, and he had never had any hair. He simply existed.  

Voldemort looked him in the eyes, then, and groaned. “I can hear you thinking, brat. Pay attention to me. And call me your Highness again.”

“Fuck you,” Harry said. Voldemort bit Harry’s lip, but Harry knew he wouldn’t be punished for it as long as any insubordination behind closed doors -- or in the heat of Voldemort’s lust. “Your Highness.”

“Ah, I forgot.” Voldemort broke away and went to the door. “Stars, hide your fires,” Voldemort whispered, and with a wave of his hand, he locked it. “Let not light see my black and deep desires.” And he locked eyes with Harry and smirked.

So it was true that Voldemort knew everything. 

Harry always did his best during the carnal act. He tried to make encouraging sounds and, judging by Voldemort’s responses, he succeeded. Every now and then, he tested out a new endearment, but Voldemort hardly seemed to register these.   

In the beginning, at these times, Harry had thought about the Dursleys a lot -- about Number 4 Privet Drive and how he never wanted to return and how, as Voldemort’s kept boy, he never would. It had been a great motivator. But as time went on, Harry found himself increasingly in the moment -- noticing Voldemort’s slick, clammy skin, his grunts, his bitten off oaths -- and he wished he were still traumatized enough to block it out. Harry watched Voldemort until he couldn’t anymore. He felt incredibly neutral.

Harry wondered how long they had been in the dressing room, and how much longer they would be. He wondered if he would keep his promise to Ron. 

Eventually, Voldemort found his satisfaction, and he frowned ever so slightly when he turned Harry around and saw that Harry hadn’t been quite as gratified. “Later,” he promised; his voice was still husky. “I want to make you feel good.”

“Really, you don’t need to, your Highness,” Harry said, in perfunctory protest. He thought of Ron and felt some real heat, but Voldemort was reverting to his normal self; leeway mounted before the act and declined afterwards, unless there was a repeat. “Besides, I haven’t seen my friends lately. They’re beginning to worry about me.”   

That was a little too close to the truth; Voldemort’s eyes flashed. “Are you not in good hands when you are in my care? Have I ever done anything but provide for you? I care for all things that are mine.”  

“No,” Harry said, hastily. “I’m just saying that they worry.”

 “I worry about you too, my jewel,” Voldemort murmured. “I worry about you when you are here. The rabble would love to defile you, I know. I worry about leaving you here all alone.”

 “I can hold my own.”

 Voldemort sat down on a bench and observed Harry with gimlet eyes -- or, rather, studied Harry’s body and his eyes. He said, “That is to say, Harry, I would like for you to finish Hogwarts early. This year.”

 “Um,” Harry said. His heart was in his throat, and he thought of the Dark Ladyship and Tom Riddle’s warnings. Had that really just been yesterday? “It’s not that I like school or anything, but what would I, you know, do?”

 “You could live with me.”

 “You’re married!”

 Voldemort laughed. “Yes, and you need to be nicer to my wife if you come to live with us. What do you say, Harry?”

 “I… I don’t know.”

 Voldemort shrugged. “Think about it.” And he got up and began to walk away -- because Harry was always the one that undressed, Harry thought resentfully, and not Voldemort.

 “Wait,” Harry said, but Voldemort kept walking. Harry couldn’t believe that Tom Riddle’s words had come true, or that Voldemort was _actually_ doing this. “Wait!” Harry sprinted over, sweaty and naked and all, and Voldemort smiled down at him. The fucker. He had probably known that Harry would come after him -- that Harry _had_ to come after him.

 Was it normal for predators to love being chased?

“The potions,” Harry said.

Voldemort lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t know what you mean, my beautiful boy.”

“You know, the things that keep me functional?” Voldemort didn’t say anything. Harry gritted his teeth. He wouldn’t raise his voice again, and it wouldn’t help anyway. Somehow this was always the most debasing part. “Please.”

Effortlessly, as if he had always expected Harry to ask, Voldemort produced and pressed a parcel of vials into Harry’s hand. Harry looked down and counted. Two weeks’ worth of Dreamless Sleep. _Double fuck_ , Harry thought. _You really are a goddamn fucker._ Harry was already well supplied with Dreamless Sleep, and that meant… “Go see your little friends, but come tonight if you need a dose of Pepper-Up Potion,” Voldemort said. He looked into Harry’s eyes, paused a moment, and walked away. By the way Voldemort walked away, Harry could tell that this time, there was no room for negotiation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the next chapter, we'll see how Hermione and Ron feel about everything. Does Harry go for his dose of Pepper-Up? 
> 
> Thank you guys so much for your response to the first chapter! I was incredibly happy to see that people are actually interested; I'd been sitting on that for a month and I wasn't sure if I wanted to post it or not. I was motivated to write this second chapter with unusual speed. 
> 
> If you notice a mistake in my French, please correct me; I study French, but it's one of my newest languages. 
> 
> Also, I tagged this fic as crack because I'm intentionally trying to make everything a bit absurd... but I'm probably going to remove it from the summary because you can read this fic as totally serious and it probably won't make much of a difference. Just understand that I'm laughing behind my hands sometimes.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Hermione; Harry and Voldemort and an offer and a confession (and a Dark Lady).

Somehow -- Harry wouldn’t remember how -- Harry showered, dressed, and stumbled back out onto the Quidditch Pitch. There weren’t many people around, probably; Harry wouldn’t know: the world was beginning to blur around him and he could only make out the grass, the sky, and the colors of House robes. Blue and black, black and green, red and gold gold gold.

“Harry! There you are. We’ve been looking all over for you. Where have you been?” A Gryffindor, probably. A girl’s voice, or a woman’s. Or maybe it was Luna?

“I’m sorry,” Harry said, trying for a tone of mischievous affability. “I was just getting clean, you know.”

“Merlin! You look like death warmed over, Harry.” An arm took his. He looked over: hair, brilliant russet, or red. Not Luna, then. What shade of brown was Hermione’s hair, and what shade of red was Ginny’s hair? He wished that his vision could clear up, or that his mind would. He felt as if he were falling from a great height.

“We’re celebrating in the common room,” the girl added, when Harry didn’t say anything. “Ron’s already there, waiting for you.”

“He brought me donuts this morning,” Harry said, in lieu of a personalized response. “They were so good. Don’t know how…” The girl was dragging him more than he was walking; the world flashed black, bright, black. He felt that he was going up stairs, softly. “Where are we going?”

“The common room, of course.” The reply was convincing enough and, even if he had wanted to, Harry couldn’t have moved; if she were dragging him to his death, he would still be grateful for her.

More stairs. Harry groaned. “It’s okay, Harry. We’re almost there.”

Fat Lady’s voice. Stairs. Whimpering. “I know, Harry. I’m sorry. You did so good today, Harry.”

Loud. HARRY HARRY HARRY. _Yes, that’s me_ , he wanted to say. “GUYS! SHUT UP!” the girl shouted. 

Whimpering again. The whimpering was his own, he realized.

Is he alright?

 _Who_?

Harry, are you alright?

 _Oh, they mean me. Someone’s talking to me. I’m fine_. _Don’t worry about me_. _Just go on with your party._

But he couldn’t move for all the Quidditch glories in the world and there was a great hush, and then nothing, or darkness.

Voices, every now and then.  

“But he’ll be crushed! We can’t just tell him to -- ”

“Keep your voice down, Ronald!”

…

“And how will you explain where they came from?”

…  

“... even Malfoy hates him… you have to be pretty bad, for Malfoy...”

“... cousins…”

Hot, bright, pain. Harry opened his eyes. Hermione frowning. Shining wand-point in his face. “Harry, you have to wake up now.” Harry turned over. Brief blessed near-darkness until the wand-point followed him. “I know, Harry. But it’s past dinnertime. It’s going to be worse if you sleep any longer.”

“Just turn it off, please,” Harry begged. Why was he begging? “I’ll do it. But no light. Please.”

It turned off. Harry drifted a little while longer. He woke back up to a hitched breath in the darkness: a sob.

“‘Mione?”

The sob stopped. Hermione’s breathing, so familiar, wobbling. “Yes, Harry,” she said. From the sound of her voice, Harry could tell she was trying to smile. “I’m right here.”

“I’m sorry.” Harry opened his eyes. Candles burning in the distance. Hermione’s face in the moonlight. “I didn’t mean to.”

Hermione’s breathing coming closer, Hermione’s weight on his bed. “I know.” Hand stroking his hair. It felt nice. “I know you don’t want this. Nobody could want this. 

“But I do want it,” Harry said. He didn’t know why he was bothering to lie. “It’s my choice.”

“Sometimes people don’t have choices, Harry. Not real ones.” Hermione’s voice was hard, but the hand in his hair didn’t stop. Harry found himself leaning into the hand, and then it did stop. 

“Why’d you stop?”

It resumed.

Harry woke up very gradually, though the feeling of grogginess never quite went away; it was only supplanted by thirst and hunger. Hermione, looking into his face, brought him water and a plate of hot food. Harry sat up in bed and accepted the goblet first, with shaking hands. “Drink slower,” she said as Harry gulped down the goblet. Hermione, sitting next to him, put her wand tip to the goblet’s edge -- “ _Aguamenti_ ” -- again and again, and Harry drank and drank. “You’ll ruin your appetite.” When Harry was done, he took the plate and wolfed down the food. He couldn’t taste anything, but it tasted like love and Warming Charms. Hermione stroked his hair all the while.

While eating, Harry began to cry, just a little, and he choked on his food. Hermione rubbed his back, then, and said softly, “Oh, Harry. Please don’t cry. It makes it harder for you. And for me.”

“Sorry. Don’t mean to.” Harry swallowed hard. He could taste his tears. Silence fell, but it didn’t feel the way it had felt with Tom Riddle, expectant and waiting to be filled. Hermione was watching him, but he didn’t feel like prey. “How was the game today?”

“Amazing, Harry, you were amazing,” Hermione replied, but she didn’t add anything more, and Harry didn’t think any more needed to be said.

When he finished eating, Harry closed his eyes. He didn’t feel particularly sleepy, but he didn’t want to look at Hermione either -- her probing glance, her crestfallen eyes. “We have a Charms test tomorrow, don’t we?”

“Transfiguration, but don’t worry about it. You need rest, Harry.”

“If I don’t do well in school, ‘Mione, I think I might get expelled. Or something.”

“Don’t be silly.” Hermione’s hands clenched a little in his hair. “You don’t do nearly poorly enough, and besides, Dumbledore would never allow it.” 

“Who knows what Dumbledore will and won’t allow.”

Hermione’s gusty sigh. “Yes, I suppose that’s fair.”

“I missed the celebration, didn’t I? Is Ron upset?”

“No, Harry, Ron’s not upset.”

“Disappointed, maybe.” Harry forced his eyes open. Hermione wasn’t looking at him. “I’ve not been a very good friend lately. Sorry, Mione. I don’t mean to do it. It’s just..” He expected Hermione to fill in, but she didn’t say anything -- she was looking down and swinging her legs, like a child. Sometimes Harry forgot that Hermione was sixteen, like him. Sometimes Harry forgot that he was sixteen. “It’s just, there’s not enough time, you know? I wish I could see you guys more.”

“We don’t hold it against you, Harry. We just want you to be happy.”

“Why isn’t Ron here? Why are you here? In the dorms, I mean. I thought you weren’t allowed to be here.”

Hermione looked over at him then, smiling. “You know how Dumbledore is. I’m not one to break the rules, but… we rise to the occasion, I suppose. Ronald and Ginny are cleaning the Common Room. It’s positively filthy.”

“McLaggen, then, I take it.” That won a quivering laugh from Hermione; she had to stop stroking his hair. Harry could tell that she forgot, sometimes, that Harry was still part of them. “He was just telling me about some poisonous doxy eggs his dad imported from, uh, Georgia, I think.”

“Romania. He brought those in today. He’s been talking about it for _weeks_ .” Harry hadn’t realized it had been that long since he’d last spoken to McLaggen. “And he was sick all over the Common Room and Madame Pomfrey is tending to him now. Honestly, just how _entitled_ some purebloods can be is astonishing.”

“It’s because he has house elves at home to clean it up, I reckon,” Harry said, trying to sound sensible. Hermione lit up.

“Exactly, Harry! That’s what it is: being raised with this sense of entitlement, the feeling that someone else will always clean up after your mess.” Harry snuggled his face into the side of her thigh and enjoyed Hermione’s outrage. “Ron and Ginny aren’t too happy, but honestly! Imagine if the elves had to do it!”

“Compared to McLaggen, Malfoy isn’t actually too bad.”

“Compared to the rest of his set, Malfoy looks like an angel in Heaven,” Hermione agreed. “I’m revising my opinion about him every day.”

“You’ll be married at this rate,” Harry warned. “Break it to Ron gently.”

Hermione flicked his head. “Hush, you.”

“You could live in Malfoy Manor and everything!”

Hermione didn’t dignify that with a response.

 _You could marry Draco,_ Harry thought, _and I could marry Voldemort, and we could be family._

Harry had to fight the urge to volunteer the anecdote about being offered Malfoy Manor -- how would he explain what context it had happened in, or why he had been talking to Riddle in the first place? It would be far too easy for Hermione to connect the dots. She hated Tom Riddle on principle: he combined her own intelligence with unimaginable privilege and immorality, the depths of which were unknown. He had never been unfair to them as Head Boy, but his mere existence was an affront.

Tom Riddle was always an odder thought after a tryst. Harry had never understood how Tom Riddle floated above it all despite being the son of Voldemort. For even someone like Draco Malfoy, involvement in the upper echelons of society came at a price, but Tom Riddle seemed equally happy everywhere, as at ease attending Ministry galas as on the sidelines of Quidditch pitches. Harry could see Tom Riddle on a billboard, or an advertisement, or as Minister for Magic. In the years he had known Tom Riddle -- however vague their acquaintance; up until yesterday, the closest Harry had ever gotten was walking by the Slytherin table -- Tom Riddle’s face had never shown as much as a single shadow of worry; there was never a person, or a slant of light, that didn’t flatter him.

Why was it that Harry had to earn his place in the Wizarding World in locker rooms when people like Tom Riddle were born having it all? What didn’t Tom Riddle have?

The locker room. Tonight. Harry groaned.

“What is it, Harry?” Hermione looked at him; her eyes were shining with mirth. Harry hated to ruin that.

“It’s just… Voldemort. He said that I had to come tonight.”

“You don’t _have to_.”

“But I do.” Harry thought of how he could explain his need for the Pepper-Up Potion. “He… promised me something. I have to go over there to get it. _Tempus_. Fuck, how’s it midnight already?”

“I see.” Harry snuck a glance at Hermione; she didn’t look as angry as Harry had expected. Not angry at all, actually, just a little sad. “When will you be back?”

“Tomorrow morning. I think.”

“I don’t suppose I could persuade you to stay?”

“If it was up to me, I wouldn’t leave.” He said the words before he could consider them, and he winced at his own vulnerability, but it earned no reproach -- or reciprocity -- from Hermione.

“Very well,” Hermione said. “I’ll walk you to the Floo, then.” She rose without warning; Harry fell over on the bed. He watched as Hermione, with new carelessness, swept provisions for Harry into a paper bag.

“I don’t need anything, really. I'll be back soon.”

“Nonsense,” she said. Harry could hear glass knocking into the bag -- the clatter of Potions bottles, inkwells. He wondered if she knew: if she could read Pepper-Ups and Dreamless Sleeps in his bloodshot eyes, between the thuds of his pulse, transpose library pages onto the faces of human beings. The idea that Hermione didn’t know everything was beyond Harry’s comprehension; from the moment they had met, Hermione had always known everything, illuminated the world and made it safe in which to wander, explore, and dream, and Harry wished that if nothing else he could have told her, and that she could have petted his hair and told him that she understood, and loved him, and he would have taken that over undoing the bonds that tied him to Voldemort.

“Come,” Hermione said, putting the handle of the bag of provisions into his hand, and walking away. Harry peeked in to see wrapped sandwiches, fruits, pastries, but Hermione wasn’t looking at him when he looked up in gratitude.

 _I love you_ , Harry thought at the back of Hermione’s head. They were words he said often, but that he seldom thought, and he was astonished by his own sincerity. Love had never crystalized for Harry, never become real and concrete the way it had long ago for other people, but nonetheless Harry had come to know love in the guise of other things: food given abundantly and willingly, warm touches bestowed without any expectation of reciprocity, and even Hermione’s solemn silence.

“I’m taking Harry to the Floo,” Hermione told Ron, and Ron too was silent -- but Ginny, at Ron’s side, had the nerve to look solicitous.

“How are you, Harry?” Ginny asked. "Recovered?"

“Perfect,” Harry responded as he went.

**X**

Harry wished for many things: that Filch would find and stop them; that Tom Riddle would find them and order them back to their dorms; that the Floo network would be down; that Auntie Bella would find him and slit his throat; that Dumbledore would be in his office, and prevent his going… But nothing happened, and everything was dark and smooth and unpeopled, and he arrived safely at Voldemort’s manor.  

Harry emerged from the Floo with Voldemort nowhere in sight. It was, naturally, a house elf who was waiting for him. 

“Blinky has been instructed to inform you, sir, that Master and Mistress await you in the Rose Room,” she said. These trysts had never included Bellatrix before; the manor had enough wings that it was possible to go for days without seeing anyone.

At Harry’s bewildered look, Blinky went on, “Pardon me, sir, if Blinky does not speak properly. Blinky is not from here, and studied English many years at school, but it has been quite a while, yes, and Blinky is quite old.”

“Your English is as perfect as ever, Blinky. But um… could you tell me where the Rose Room is?”

“The Rose Room is on the ground floor, sir. It is the third room on the left-hand side of the Grand Hall.” Harry groaned. “Mistress has placed the statue of Leda in the Rose Room.”

“I guess I’ll see it, thanks,” Harry said, even though he knew perfectly well where the statue of Leda had been placed. The Floo was, for whatever reason, linked to a fireplace on the third floor; once he had reached the second floor -- and left Blinky’s sight -- he paced to compose himself.

The manor was always more lovely than he could remember it: there were the Persian rugs, wide windows on verdant gardens, flame-lit sconces, chandeliers aplenty -- but it breathed, also, an air of pleasure sated and fine; it was, through and thorough, an appropriate nursery for such a creature as Tom Riddle, whose eyes spoke of having grown up in this vast and serene inner world. Even the darkness moving through the house felt luxuriant.

“Mr. Potter!” Voldemort’s voice called out; Harry jumped.

Harry was certain that he was still on the second floor, yet there they were, the Dark Lord and Dark Lady both, each sat -- or, in the Dark Lady’s case, sprawled -- on their own chaise lounge. The lighting was dim, warm, and intimate. There was the statue of Leda and the swan.

“Harry! My darling!” the Dark Lady cried out, but she did not sit up; if anything she seemed to sprawl even more lazily, as if to emphasize the dramatic and artful shape of her body. “Come in!”

Harry did enter; the impossible figures of Dark Lord, Lady, and statue came closer; the Dark Lady, with sudden agility, leapt up and dashed over, pressing the side of Harry’s face into her hot bosom. “How I’ve missed you! How well you played today! How dashing you are in your little Quidditch uniform!”

“Auntie Bella,” he said, in greeting. “It’s, uh, such a pleasure to see you. You put Leda to shame.”

“See, my love! Harry knows how to pay a compliment to a lady.” The Dark Lady pouted and smiled alternatively, and with the slightest change of her expression, the movement of her muscles, Harry became more and more unsure whether she was a venerable lady, a respectable aunt, or a vixen -- or if she could inhabit all these roles at once -- if she could be Voldemort’s wife and Tom Riddle’s mother -- if she could be anything else.

She had, Harry thought, quite missed out on a career on the stage.

“It is not a man’s place to flatter his wife’s vanity,” Voldemort retorted, but he looked amused, light-hearted. The Dark Lady laughed and beamed back at her husband.

Why was it that even the Dark Lord, the murderer and philanderer, a bald old man, had someone who adored him, and looked at him with such eyes? She looked at him as if though she could not care that Voldemort were bald or old, or that he had the audacity to bring his mistress before her; her eyes promised that she would love him if he were poor and downcast and ostracized by all of society. And what place did Harry have, getting in the way of this love affair?

“Come, Harry. We have sampled a selection of different Doxy eggs tonight, but both Bella and I prefer these, from Romania.” Harry demurred. “Really, we do insist. They were steeped in the rains that fell on the first day of spring, which coincided with night of the full moon. It washes away the poison, you know, and all that is left is a bit of a _bite_.” Blinky snapped into being and handed the Dark Lord a skewer, which he proceeded to eat with the exaggerated grace of a professor showing a new spell to his class.

The Dark Lady procured a skewer of Doxy eggs and all but thrust it into Harry’s mouth. Harry chewed and smiled all at once, wondering why his wit was failing him. “I apologize for being late. I was studying for a Charms exam.”

“To be a student again,” the Dark Lord said, but evidently she had wondered the same thing as Harry, for the Dark Lady then asked, “Do you know my son, then, Harry?”

Harry took the opportunity to chew a little more slowly than he might have otherwise ought. The Dark Lord was right: there was a bit of a sting, blissful and intoxicating, to the Doxy eggs. “I met him today, Auntie Bella,” Harry said, swallowing the remains of the eggs a bit harder to make his lie just a touch more natural. He imagined that the Dark Lady were Petunia, and Tom Riddle Dudley, and suddenly the words came easier. “And everyone knows that he’s at the top of his class — a genius seen only once in a generation.”

“As his father was! Tom is just like his father in every way, my dear,” the Dark Lady said, preening. “My son could speak to snakes before he could speak to us -- and just like his father, he preferred their company!”

“I don’t see why he should prefer snakes, when everyone at Hogwarts loves him. He’s a natural with people.” Even to Harry this sounded a bit contrived, but the Dark Lady didn’t seem to mind.

“My Tom is such a mysterious boy. He brings to mind the men of my family -- not like Sirius” (here the Dark Lady could not resist the slightest of sneers) “but my other cousins, who were reared as my brothers. Studious, with their minds trained upon the darknesses of universe, of time… I have never understood my little Tommy.”

And now it was a different woman entirely sitting before Harry: her eyes were blank, as if though she were gazing into a deep distance, into a well of melancholy even though moments before, Harry could have sworn that she had never known any pain. What they shared ran in the family, but Harry could not tell if it was a curse of madness, gift of brilliance, or a plain talent for theatricality.

Harry made small remarks with which the Dark Lady did not seem capable of engaging; finally the Dark Lord interceded. 

“Bella,” the Dark Lord said, gently. “You are tired. Go and rest a while, and let Mr. Potter and I talk. We have matters to discuss which, as you know, are not suited to the ears of the Dark Lady.” The Dark Lord rose and kissed his Lady’s hand.

“The Dark Lady never wishes to be without her lord,” she responded, but without delay she rose and left. The Dark Lord seated himself and motioned for Harry to come, and he did, and he found his face pressed into the Dark Lord’s chest, as it had been in the Lady’s only half an hour before; but strain his ear as he did, Harry could hear no heartbeat in the Dark Lord’s chest. Even at the peak of Voldemort’s passion, Harry had never heard anything that could mirror the thunderous racing of his own heart.

“My child,” Voldemort said. “Why did you not inform me that you needed more of the Pepper-Up?”

“I don’t,” Harry said into Voldemort’s chest, which rumbled with a chuckle. And indeed, Harry wasn’t lying; he felt too alert to be tired.

“But look at you, child. You’ve slept the afternoon away. Dare I guess that you were not present at the celebration with your little pets? You must come to me more frequently.”

“I will,” Harry answered, but he felt no loss of freedom; after all, he had never even thought that there had been a choice.

“We need no longer meet in secret. You see that my wife bears you no ill will. Why, ever since her son has gone away to Hogwarts, she has been quite lonely. I think she will be glad for you to join our little household.” A cold hand seized Harry’s face; their eyes met; the cold fingers stroked Harry’s hair from his forehead. “She has always loved dolls, Bella. And how fitting you would be as a gift for her, with your bright eyes… You are so smooth, my jewel. Unblemished.” Still looking straight into Harry’s eyes, Voldemort scratched between Harry’s eyebrows and breathed, “How I would love to give you your first mark.”  

“Sir?”

“You have seen the Mark, Harry, that the most loyal of my followers bear upon their arms. But for you, I think I would put it between your eyes. And then anyone who looked at you would know that you belong to me. I have never wanted anyone as much as I want you, Harry.” The Dark Lord’s eyes were bright, manic.

From the tabloids, Harry knew that the Dark Lord allegedly had had many trysts with many other Quidditch players -- it couldn’t all be true, surely, but at least some of it was true, he recognized echoes and shadows of his own fairytale as it progressed: meeting on a Pitch, the kissed hand, the sponsorship… and those who gave intimate details that Harry could recognize (the Dark Lord’s endearments, possible conflicts) always ended up abroad, or dead, or as Squibs. But those lovers had never been bonded, or marked -- and he could imagine that the Dark Lord had said these words to each and every one, but, Merlin and Morgana, Harry believed him.

In his heart, a shiver of real fear. He had felt more comfortable when he could imagine himself as part of an unseen multitude, but Voldemort was looking into his eyes as if he could see Harry in them. “I’m honored,” he said, but it came out flatly, and he tried to make up for it with a smile. He swallowed and summoned his Gryffindor courage. “Why?”

“I too was raised among Muggles,” the Dark Lord said, plainly, serenely. Harry inhaled too loudly; Voldemort’s eyes glinted with amusement, but he continued, sedately, “I lived in an orphanage until I came to Hogwarts.”

But Harry had never told anyone about that.

“Wizards themselves were no better. They thought I was a Muggleborn, Harry, and they despised me. Purebloods and muggles alike mistreated me, and once I came into my power, they received their just desserts. And I could see it in you, from the first.”

"See what?"

"The desire to make them pay, of course." _No,_ Harry thought. Voldemort paused. “Now you are the only person alive who knows this about me, Harry -- or, one of two, rather, and if you ever betray me, I will know it.” The Dark Lord caressed Harry’s neck and kissed it, smiling. “You’re more beautiful alive, my treasure. I’d have to find another use for those eyes.”

So this was what it was like to be taken into the Dark Lord’s confidence.

Harry had never wanted to know anything about the Dark Lord -- perhaps he had been curious, sometimes, what lay behind the face -- but now he felt that he was sinking, that he must shut himself up tight, and never speak again, lest he hint that he knew this terrible secret. There was now no corner of the earth dark enough to hide him, no spell that could totally prevent the possibility that his eyes would be strung for the Dark Lady’s new beaded bracelet.  

Now they were bound, well and truly; faking his death and removing to a castle in Romania would be impossible.

Harry, it seemed, had begun to weep. When he became aware of himself again, he found that the Dark Lord was brushing away his tears.

Once Harry had stopped crying, the Dark Lord knitted his fingers together and gazed at Harry very gently. In the candlelight he looked almost loving. How spellbinding the Dark Lord would be, if Harry had never known Vernon Dursley first, and had not thereby learned forever the hearts of all cruel men! “I have never harmed what is mine. You need never fear my wrath, Harry, if you belong to me,” the Dark Lord said. “In deed, in word, and in thought.”

“I do, sir,” Harry said, automatically -- registering himself, without thinking, as a participant in this grotesque marriage ceremony.

“And in return,” the Dark Lord continued, as if without interruption, “you’ll find that the love of a Dark Lord is nothing to scoff at, my darling.” Harry bowed his head. “You will never know want or need. Anyone who has tormented you will meet the fate of my own tormentors, and no one will dare lay a finger upon you again. You will be no less formidable than myself, or the Dark Lady. Even my own son will treat you as his superior, and you will live in pleasure and comfort here with us, eating Doxy eggs and whiling away an eternity. But that is a story for another time. I can see you are quite tired, my dear.”

Blinky appeared.

“Blinky will take you back to Hogwarts with enough of anything you could ever want for the next month, Harry. No, give him enough to last until the summer holiday. I want to give you time, Harry, to think about my offer. When we met, you were but a child, and now you are old enough to make your way in the world, or to make yourself master of a Dark Lord. Think carefully, my jewel.” 

But when Harry arrived back at Hogwarts, it was already sunrise, somehow. Had the Dark Lord confounded him so that he would be confused by the flow of time? The day of the Charms exam, wasn’t it? He looked over the crate of Potions he had returned with, but he couldn’t be bothered to count them.

Harry got into his bed, shut and spelled his curtains, and screamed into his pillow -- hoping, against all hope and the efficacy of his magic, that someone -- anyone -- could hear him.

**X**

For three days, he was to find out later, Harry slept. And for three days, Harry lived in a world where he did not drink anything, the Dark Lady wore his eyes in her eye sockets -- Tom Riddle kissed Harry’s feet and called him father -- in which Harry was the Dark Lady, looking wistfully onto Quidditch pitches from high boxes, mixing gaily with a multitude of Malfoys and Malfoy-adjacents in white-lit ballrooms and gardens. However gently they coaxed him, Hermione and Ron could never find out very much about this world, for Harry would never be able to remember either.

But what Harry would remember, and could never admit, was that Harry had been happy in this world: he could remember it only in images and feelings that were like flowers and springtime, and this scared him more than any assault or violation could ever have. He did not love the Dark Lord, and never would, and he loved Quidditch like he loved having air in his lungs, but he remembered with sickening thrills the obeisance, the adoration, and the fear in the eyes of all who looked at him, and somehow it was more potent than any other joy he had felt before.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Harry finally has time to himself and actually speaks instead of being dominated all the time; Tom Riddle appears! (hopefully)
> 
> Thanks, again, for your comments and kudos! I've just come back from vacation and I'm a bit behind on responding to the comments for last chapter... but naturally I have read all of them and adored them and will respond shortly! 
> 
> If you ever feel unsure about the plot/part of the plot, characterization, etc -- I do read comments before/while I write the next chapter, so I might be able to address it in the next chapter(s) if you let me know what it is you find confusing. 
> 
> Also: the plot has already diverged pretty significantly from the (rather short) crack version, which I'll probably write anyway as a parody of this fic after this one, because that was what I had hoped to write!


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry is free of the shackles of Voldemort, for now. Harry's academics are addressed.

Naturally, Harry woke up in the infirmary: white sheets, the long yellow sunbeams of morning, Ron dozing by his side. It seemed to him that he woke up in the days before Voldemort, when Hogwarts had still been a precious fairytale without a villain. He closed his eyes and went back to sleep.

He woke up without prompting, and instead of Ron dozing, it was Hermione alert by his side. He didn’t open his eyes, but he knew it was her by her hands stroking his forehead. It was pleasant.

“Mr. Potter is awake,” Madame Pomfrey announced, without preamble. The hands stopped.

“Harry!” Hermione cried, and shook him. “Harry, are you there? We thought you were dead!”

“Like I said, Ms. Granger, it was only a case of extreme magical exhaustion. With the equipment we have here at Hogwarts, it certainly wouldn’t have been fatal.” Madame Pomfrey’s steps came closer.

Harry thanked all the gods, demi- and semi-gods he could think of that Madame Pomfrey had not discovered the potions in his blood, that Hermione didn’t know. But it seemed strange that such an obvious thing should be overlooked. Harry opened his eyes: the world in vivid colors, moving, dizzying.

Madame Pomfrey discharged him without much more comment:

Hermione looked at Madame Pomfrey, across the room. They locked eyes; Madame Pomfrey hesitated.

“Now, listen to me, Mr. Potter, you really ought to be kept in the infirmary,” Madame Pomfrey said, waveringly, “but I expect you will be fine in the custody of your friends.”

“Thank you, Madame Pomfrey,” Hermione said, and, very deliberately, she smiled, and a smile like a shadow crept across Madame Pomfrey’s face.

“I trust you, Ms. Granger.”

**X**

The first week without Voldemort was the hardest, and Harry couldn’t understand why.

From the moment that he had allied himself with the Dark Lord, Harry had never wanted anything more than this: the warm, deep-skied afternoons of an approaching spring, the smell of Quidditch pitch grass in his nose, and time to watch, from the library windows, the afternoons slant into evenings with Hermione and Ron by his side. Life was slower than he remembered, and he drank a little less Pepper-Up, and he found that he had forgotten how peaceful it was to simply sit in the Great Hall and watch other people eat, banter, flirt. Everything seemed much more immediate than it ever had before -- the Slytherin table, crowned by Draco Malfoy and Tom Riddle, seemed almost within touch -- yet the castle felt higher, more hallowed than he could ever remember it.

Even Harry’s schoolwork seemed more meaningful; in stray moments he found himself leafing through his textbooks, amazed at the sum of Wizarding knowledge, and even if he did not remember anything later, he admired diagrams and wondered at the greatness of the world.

But time moved so slowly, and every moment that someone came into the room, Harry found himself jumping; every owl that came in at breakfast seemed to be coming for him. He remembered with cold clarity Voldemort’s promise to leave him be until the summer months, but Harry could not bring himself to believe it. He braced himself for the next blow, but nothing came, and it was because of this expectation -- and not anything else -- that Harry found himself nauseous, and for that first week, he tried to go without Dreamless Sleep. Instead he laid in his bed and wondered if indeed he loved Voldemort, or if he craved somehow Voldemort’s attention -- if he should drop out of Hogwarts now or later, and why he was broken.

No one else really seemed to notice the profound shift in the world: Hermione and Ron both marked Harry’s increased presence with looks of gratitude, but nothing else; Neville, Ginny, and Luna, went as far as to openly say it; but everyone else treated him as if though he were some sort of long-forgotten acquaintance who had passed out of their lives at some point, and there was no space for him to rejoin. He was a ghost in the world of the living; besides Ron and Hermione, only Voldemort loved him.

It was agreed that Harry should take his Charms exam at a future date, but no date was ever set, and Harry knew that his term grades would likely be as lovely as they could be; his OWLs were a different story, but a Minister for Magic could easily bury them, and Quidditch stars were not known for their booksmarts anyway. But when they sat together in the library, Harry thought of his coursework with a sense of dull shame. Hermione looked so peaceful studying.

She seemed to feel his discomfort; she raised her head from her book long enough to say, “Don’t worry about it, Harry. It’s one exam, and Professor Flitwick must know what you’re going through. Focus on studying for your OWLs.”

Sometimes that kindness was so hard to bear. Harry did his best to smile. “Are you sure that’s you, Mione?”

“Certain.” Hermione tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, slowly. “You do still want to be an Auror, don’t you, Harry?”

“Of course,” Harry said, just at the moment that Ron said, “Merlin, Hermione, you know he hasn’t wanted that since -- ” And Ron paused. “Since, you know, Harry saw that Muggle movie that one summer about _police brutality,_ was it, mate?”  

Harry’s laugh was loud; someone, startled, tipped over their inkwell, and cursed. “Yeah,” Harry whispered. Ron’s nose wrinkled. “ _That_ would be the reason why. Of course I still want to be an Auror, Ron.”

“Honestly, Ronald,” Hermione hissed. “It’s like you don’t remember anything about Harry at all. Grindelwald killed his parents, remember?”

“Right!” Ron held up his hands. “I just wanted to make sure Harry hadn’t changed his mind, that’s all.”  

“Thanks, Ron,” Harry said, or would have said, if Madam Pince’s voice hadn’t rung out from behind them, and her wand-tip dug into the top of his head: “ _Silencio_ . I’ve ignored you long enough, Mr. Potter, knowing your circumstances, but the library is meant for study. And you, Mr. Weasley. _Silencio_.”

What about Hermione? Ron’s mouth asked Madam Pince’s retreating back. Hermione, looking up from her book, smiled briefly, and Harry, giddy with the completeness of it all, laughed himself breathless. Ron grinned back at him, but Hermione didn’t look up again.

**X**

By some unspoken agreement, either Ron or Hermione was always with him from morning until night. He didn’t know how they had arranged it with each other, much less picked up on his inner rhythms, but whenever Harry pulled himself out of sleep, or of a reverie, there Ron or Hermione was, at his elbow in the Dining Hall, or on the other side of his bed curtains. Hermione was brusque, focused on classes and homework and schedules, and Ron was always cheerful, as if Hogwarts existed merely for Harry’s pleasure, but they shared the same cautious eyes, looking deeply into Harry. And somehow, even when Harry was not capable of speech, they knew what he needed, instinctively: food, water, silence.

They were so constant that when Harry found himself alone in the Dining Hall one evening, he hadn’t realized he had moved through the day alone -- hungry, thirsty, and drowsy: his bag was out of Pepper-Up and his hand ached from taking copious make-up notes, and Hermione was perhaps somewhere doing something for him and Ron was helping her. It was of course then that Tom Riddle cornered him.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Harry. You know that homemaking is the only option for even a Wizard who flunks out of Hogwarts.”

Harry jolted to hear Tom Riddle’s voice. “Huh?” Craning his neck, he saw that Tom Riddle was smiling affably, as was his wont, and he slid beside Harry on the bench with the easy grace of a snake. No other Gryffindor seemed to see Tom Riddle: he had entered during a high point in the night’s churning conversation; the Weasleys were telling some high-colored tales about their new inventions, or their romantic conquests, or their brothers’ keeping dragons in Romania. Their conversation became similar to Harry after a while, but everyone else -- First or Seventh Year, ranging anywhere from Neville to Lavender, -- was listening with rapt adoration to the twins. A few Hufflepuffs were lingering nearby as well.

“You’re set to fail Charms, Harry.” Riddle rested his elbow on the table, his face in his palm. “Such a shame, an intelligent boy like you.”

Harry recovered his composure faster than he imagined himself capable. “That’s no way to address your stepfather, my dear _Tommy_ ,” he said, lowly enough to bury his words in the Weasleys’ laughter.

“I’m approaching you not in a personal capacity, but in my capacity as Head Boy, as a liaison between professors and students,” Tom replied. “You’ve accumulated a number of unexcused absences, Harry. Surely you must know that.”

Harry glared. “You know as well as I do that I couldn’t have been here then.”

“There’s always a choice, Harry. And it’s not just Charms -- even Professor McGonagall, the Head of your own House, has expressed concerns about how you would fare with your current knowledge of Transfiguration. After all, you’ve yet to demonstrate an even adequate proficiency in a number of spells and skills that others in your year have already mastered.”  

Harry tried not to think of Professor McGonagall telling Riddle that she found Harry inadequate. “What’s your point, Riddle?”

“Your education is lacking and, despite any help you might receive from above, it would be plainly unethical for your professors to do anything but hold you back. It would be a discredit to Hogwarts’ name to graduate a student like you.”

“So what do you want me to do? Use a Time-Turner and undo all of my absences? Undo meeting your father?” Harry felt the beginnings of anger come on -- roaring, muting everything around him. He was shouting and maybe there was no longer anything to mute, because there was some tugging hand on his shoulder and worried voice in his ear, but Harry could no longer stop. “Do you think we all have the same choices as you do, Riddle? Should I apologize for not having been born Head Boy, or having been born your father’s concubine instead of his son?”

Riddle frowned and raised his hands. “I’m only the messenger. Perhaps you should think longer on your problem without conflating it and I.” And Riddle sighed -- but he looked far from troubled -- and stood up, walked away.

Through blurry eyes, Harry could see who had known about his relationship with Voldemort, and who hadn’t, by the looks on their faces, the sounds of their voices. All of Gryffindor was ashen-faced, but silent. He had enjoyed a brief friendship with Neville right up until Voldemort: a warm, spring-like friendship, composed of afternoons in botany and of weekends in Hogsmeade, Firewhiskey and Butterbeer.

Harry wondered how Neville had known -- if someone had told him to stop speaking to Harry, or if he had been watching Harry descend into madness all along from right across the table. The Hufflepuffs were looking at him with fear and pity, as if though he were wounded; the Ravenclaws looked indifferent to such earthly affairs. And the Slytherins were in a murderous uproar, shouting, flinging slurs and secret silver and blue curses.

Harry saw, as if though in a dream, those little lordlings and ladies who were lunging towards him, and would have been his death were it not for chance interventions headed by the Blacks, and -- of all people -- Draco Malfoy and Blaise Zabini, who wore identical expressions of aristocratic disapproval.

Harry had met the parents of most of his would-be-murderers at some furtive banquet or another, banquets where everyone ate little bits of fine food for dinner and desecrated Muggle bodies for dessert. The hostess -- whoever it might be -- always set the table with white linen, even though -- perhaps because -- it would be soaked through afterwards.

Harry had shaken their fathers’ hands and kissed their mothers’ elbow-long kid gloves -- Lord Parkinson, Lord Nott, Lord Goyle -- and they had said pleasant things about their sons and daughters in Hogwarts, around his age, and how they ought to be introduced sometime. And now Harry heard Lady Parkinson’s voice, shouting, “Our Lord condescend to bugger Potter? It could never be!” He saw Crabbe Senior’s lips, mouthing _Crucio_ , in his son’s face.

Voices shouting, louder voices: Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape, even. Punishments, detentions, harsh speakings-to behind closed doors. _Silencios_ and Tranquilizer charms, and a great hush and chill in the great Dining Hall.  

 _I hope Voldemort loves enough to kill for me,_ Harry thought, reflexively, and pictured at once in his mind’s eye Voldemort levitating, parading Theo Nott’s dead or dying body down a luncheon table, to be tortured and cut apart by new Lord Notts. And he shuddered.

“Harry, it’s time to go,” Ron said. Suddenly there -- his voice emotionless, but soothing, like a cold compress over Harry’s eyes. He rubbed Harry’s shoulder again, awkwardly.

So Ron had been standing there all that time.

Harry nodded. “I know,” he said. He blinked, to tear his eyes away from the image of Theo Nott’s dead body, and then there was the Great Hall, and he did not see murderous lords and ladies who would break his body over white linens, but young, misbehaving children who would pelt another child in the name of their god.

“They were just surprised, Ron. Because their parents never told them about me,” Harry said to Ron as they walked back to Gryffindor Tower. “How did Neville know about me?”  

“Of course Neville knows, Harry! You’re never in the dorms anymore. And,” Ron hesitated, “maybe sometimes Hermione uses your bed while you’re away.”  

“Oh.” Harry did his best to laugh.

When they got back to Gryffindor Tower, the sun was setting and Hermione was waiting for them -- indeed, sitting on Harry’s bed, probably out of habit. She blushed a little when she realized, but Harry shook his head, and Ron and Harry sat down beside her.

“I heard about what happened,” Hermione said, tremulously. “I’m sorry, Harry. Do you want to talk about it?”

Harry sank onto his back and looked up at the canopy: such pretty red and gold stripes. Maybe he’d plaster the inside of his room at Voldemort’s manor with red and gold. “It’s fine. It had to happen sometime.”

Harry had expected her to contest the point, but Hermione didn’t say anything, only reached for his hand. Hermione wasn’t looking at him, but it was the first time in a long time that Harry could remember that her eyes didn’t look distant; from this angle, Hermione’s face burst into a smile, and her brown eyes were amber in the light of the setting sun.

“You know, Harry, when I got my Hogwarts letter, I had so many dreams about what I was going to do with magic.” Both Ron and Harry turned to look at Hermione, but her gaze remained fastened on some far corner of the room. She was still smiling. “I thought that I could build castles in the air. That magic would be what I wanted it to be. I didn’t understand that even magic has its laws. I was naïve, I think.”  

Nobody said anything. Hermione turned Harry’s hand over in her own and looked at it, as if gazing at some celestial being that had fallen from a high height -- with not pity, but wonder.  

“But how could I have known? The first time the flowers in the tablecloth bloomed, it was electrifying, and then I found out that I could become a witch and live my entire life that way. But it was all a dream, I think. It was too good to be true.”

“What do you mean, Hermione?” Harry asked.

But Hermione only began to swing her legs, and it made Harry feel sleepy, and she went on, “There was nothing wrong with being a Muggle, you know. I love magic, but maybe it’s made things more complicated for us than it had to be. Sometimes I think I’d put it all away in a box, and I could live with my parents again.” Her smile broke; her mouth wobbled, stilled. “It’s been so long since I saw them last.”  

“You’ll see your family again,” Harry broke in. “I’ll ask Voldemort to pass a family reunion law.” Even if Harry’s power only won him an exception for Hermione, Harry would win it.

Hermione shook her head, but she had regained her smile, and she squeezed his hand. “I don’t think it’s that easy, Harry.”

“If Harry can’t get Voldemort to change the law, who can?” Ron interjected. “I reckon that if there were anyone else in Voldemort’s life, we’d have heard about it by now.”

“There’s more to Wizarding power structure than just Voldemort,” Hermione shot back, but nonetheless she fell silent, and Ron didn’t seem inclined to press the matter.

Instead Ron said, “What would you do, do you think, if you were just a Muggle?”

“I’d never kiss a boy named Ron, for one,” Hermione said; now it was Ron’s turn to blush, and they looked at each other fondly, lovingly, in the way that the Dark Lady had looked at her Lord.

Harry’s heart squirmed. Maybe this was the sign that Harry and Voldemort were made for each other; maybe they were the only people on the planet who couldn’t love.

**X**

Whatever fears Harry had about confrontation were unfounded: the next day, everyone avoided Harry more studiously than usual and the professors' frowns contained a touch more pity than they had before, when Harry had believed them to be at capacity. The day was remarkably serene, and it gave Harry the opportunity to watch closely for his chance to approach Tom Riddle, but in the end, it was easier to approach Tom Riddle than Harry thought it would be.

There was no magical wall separating Tom Riddle from the rest of humanity -- Voldemort was rumored to have such a spell, but even Harry didn’t know the truth of that -- and no mysterious force that ejected him from Tom Riddle’s presence. Ron and Hermione, like anyone else, could be fobbed off for an easy half-hour, and Tom Riddle, like anyone else, could be found filing into the hallway after a Potions class, and unlike most anyone else, he was unguarded. Sometimes, Harry had seen in his years at Hogwarts, another Slytherin stood near Riddle, but there was always the careful distance of a lord and his servant.

Harry had intended to approach the thing diplomatically, but in the end, Harry’s blood burned and the corridor was empty and dusk was falling, and Harry shouted, “Riddle!”

Riddle did not stop walking, or turn his head.

Harry broke into a run and made sure that his shoulder bumped Riddle’s, and finally Riddle’s mocking eyes looked at him, and his lips smiled, but his head did not turn, and he did not stop walking. Harry angled himself in front of Riddle and made to walk backwards.

“Riddle! I know you can bloody see me! And hear me! Bloody answer me, you prat!”

And, of course, at that moment, Harry could hear McGonagall striding up the corridor on a clicking heel; he could already see her pursed lips, hear her “Mr. Potter”.

Mercifully, Riddle took that moment to pause, blink. He looked at Harry again and waved his hand beside his head, murmuring. “Was there something you needed, Harry?” he asked, and his voice was all charm.

To this was added a supplementary question: “Has Mr. Potter been troubling you, your Royal Highness?” McGonagall’s lips were indeed pursed, but her eyes, Harry gratefully noted, looked unwilling.

“No, Professor. Harry and I are the best of friends.” Riddle smiled at McGonagall’s open, soundless disbelief. “We’ve come to know each other quite well in the past few days. He speaks to me in rather unique endearments.”

“Very well,” McGonagall said, clearly relieved, and she strode on, on her clicking heels, without inquiring after Harry. Harry liked her the better for it.

Riddle touched Harry’s hand; Harry started. Riddle’s eyes were a gleaming grey, and still smiling. “Was there something you needed, Harry?”

“Why didn’t you bloody answer me?” Harry asked, hotly. “You know what I’m here for, Riddle!”

“I prefer it quiet in my head,” Riddle said. “The noise disturbs me.”

“That doesn’t answer either of my questions!”

Riddle’s flirtatious exterior faltered as he pinched his nose. “What I mean to say is that there is a bubble of silence that surrounds me, Harry, at all times. If I were less proficient in lip reading… actually, I would have still known that you wanted to speak with me. But nonetheless, you could have made your intentions clearer.”

“I think you were just ignoring me,” Harry said. “What spell is it?”

“It’s not a spell, Harry. It’s just magic.” Riddle began to glide again. Harry noticed, for the first time, that they were on the staircases, and that other people were present, and sliding past Harry and Riddle as if though they were just two more portraits on the walls. Harry stopped and watched Riddle glide away. “I can see you don’t pay much attention in class.”

“Yes, that!” Harry cried. “Couldn’t you have pulled me aside privately?”

Riddle’s voice sounded as if though Riddle were right next to him, even though Riddle was already the floor above? “I had.”

“Couldn’t you have made, I don’t know, a _wall of magic_ between us and everyone else?” Harry shouted up. “It was a cheap trick! You knew what would happen, didn’t you?”

“Come along, Harry,” Riddle said, gently. “Before you make another scene. We do despise scenes, don’t we?”  

“Where are _we_ going?” And Merlin, why hadn’t Hermione and Ron come looking for him by now? How distracted did they think he could be by copying Charms notes?

“I would like to show you something.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you until you answer me, Riddle! Where are we going, anyway?”

Harry was beginning to become familiar with the way Riddle sighed through his nose. “The minds of children are fickle, and their attention is fleeting. They might be captivated by something else by next week,” Riddle offered. He didn’t sound the least bit contrite. _Bugger off,_ Harry wanted to shout up. “Don’t suggest, as you are about to, that I have endangered your safety. Given the rate at which your marriage seems to be progressing, it wasn’t likely to be a secret for much longer. The seventh floor.”

 _Marriage?_ Harry thought, and faltered. “As if a Slytherin could care about ethics,” he said, delicately, for he was thinking not “Slytherin” but _the Dark Lord’s son_ , but in his confusion, he bolted up the stairs anyway. From the slight and painless way Tom Riddle smiled at him when Harry reached him, he knew he had been understood.

They walked slowly until they reached an empty wall.

In the bizarreness of the situation, Harry had already forgotten what he had last said when Tom Riddle’s voice replied, “You would be surprised.” It made Harry uncomfortable, Tom Riddle’s solemn and sad air -- his stateliness, which even Voldemort failed to possess except by use of certain dramatic inflections and timing. He was accustomed to Tom Riddle as an ornament reflecting his parents’ pride and honor.

Tom Riddle walked three perfunctory laps in front of the wall, as if he were performing a military drill and Harry were his commanding officer, and there was a door in the wall, suddenly.

Later, Harry would ask himself why he hadn’t thought it was odd, but before he knew Tom Riddle well enough, there was nothing more self-explanatory than the fact that the castle would yield its secrets to, and make secret rooms and passages for, Tom Riddle: heir of Slytherin, of the Dark Lord, of the Wizarding World.

“Come with me,” Tom Riddle said.

Riddle’s hand was already on the handle when Harry, listening to his better judgment, said, “No, Riddle, I won’t.” Riddle’s hand twitched, but he heard the weakness in Harry’s voice.

“Let me be frank, Harry,” Riddle said. “If you drop out of Hogwarts, if you fail your classes, if you never learn to master your magic -- you’ll never be anyone in this world, Harry. You have no talents right now, only your youth. Within ten years’ time, you’ll watch as my father pursues his latest conquest, and like my mother, you will be too powerless to do anything about it. You will have no skills, no friends, no prospects. You will be utterly alone. Once you are no longer useful, no longer young, who will you be, what can you do? You will hold little interest for him. Do you know how beautiful my mother once was, and what a talented duelist she could have been? And you will suffer the fate that my mother has only narrowly avoided: Voldemort will take your magic from you and forcibly retire you, as a Squib, to the Muggle world, where you will rot in an asylum, screaming about wizards and witches. And no one will believe you.”

And Harry believed him.

Riddle took that moment to turn around.

“Let me save you. Let me be your teacher, Harry,” Riddle said, gently now. He was, like his mother, extremely beautiful. Harry hated him. “I’ll teach you everything I know.”

“Yes,” Harry found himself saying, as if under the Imperius. Riddle smiled, and the corners of his eyes crinkled, and Harry, remembering how the Dark Lord’s face was smooth and unlined, felt peace, felt his heart lurch traitorously, all at once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry for disappearing for so long -- I had finals and graduated from college last month, and I'm taking summer courses now, but I should have a lot more free time now. No promises, but I'll aim to write and release a chapter every week or so until this fic is done.

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback and comments are always greatly appreciated!


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